How To Get Rid Of Our Feral Hog Infestation

A few creative ways to wrangle feral bacon

Yep, escaped hunks of living, breathing, potential future bacon have set up shop in the woods in no less than twenty of the state's counties, grunting and rooting and rolling around in the mud and, of course, multiplying at a lusty rate; so full of procreating passion are these porkers that, left to their own devices, they can double their population in around a year. That's bad news for local landowners, who see their property torn up and wildlife levels decimated as the critters live up to their stereotype and eat everything in site - from turtle eggs to baby birds to tree roots - leaving a swath of destruction in their curly-tailed wake.

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Originating from careless farmers or haplessly unskilled hunters who get them to shoot and then fail to do so, feral pigs are considered by some to be the most invasive species in the U.S., running hog-wild all over 47 states and causing upwards of a billion and a half dollars in damages annually. All told, there are estimated to be more than six million of the feral swine roaming our nation, and if the data above is right, that means 12 million next year. It's a big problem.

Which brings up the question: how do you get rid of a multi-million hog hassle?

- Trap 'em. Pretty self explanatory, relatively low impact, and lots of options. From your basic catch alive to the high tech Goin Fencing, which activates a camera and alerts you via, what else, a smartphone app when something wanders into its metal confines, giving you the option to close the door or not and preventing bycatch such as dogs or our fellow man.

- Shoot 'em. Since hunting hogs, and failing, is one of the things that got us into this mess, this method may not prove too effective against the wiley critters, which are smarter than dogs and, according to some admittedly biased sources, small children. In Texas they've stepped it up a notch, letting anyone with a few bucks for a hunting license and a little bloodlust take to the air in helicopters, opening fire on 'em from above in a kill-'em-all video game come to life that even has right-wing rocker Ted Nugent jumping on the bandwagon with his cleverly-titled cable show, Aporkalypse.

- Poison 'em. Hogs love to eat, and can consume five percent of their average 150 - 200 pound weight a day. So why not hit 'em in their weak spot with the aptly named Hog-Gone or Pig Out, new fast-acting poisons which kills pigs in minutes but is developed to have minimal effects of other animals? Gluttons for punishment, indeed.

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- Hot dog 'em. For the most controversial technique, we bring you redneck fox hunting, AKA "hot dogging." Basically you grab your camo coveralls, hop on your matching four wheeler and go after 'em with pitbulls specially trained to get hog-wild and convert your local pig popultaion into so much hash. Formerly disgraced quarterbacks need not apply.

- Hog wrastlin'. More of a mano-a-mano kind of guy? How's about the rapidly growing mudsport of hog wrastlin'? Sure, it's slippery, slimy, full contact, and doesn't actually do anything to deplete their numbers, but have you ever seen a bunch of drunk college kids try to pin a pig in a mudpit?

- Or, of course, we could just use drones on 'em. This is America, after all.